TERRACE, B.C. — A former B.C. Liberal MLA and one-time senior Enbridge official says the Calgary-based pipeline company has taken the wrong approach in trying to sell its Northern Gateway project to British Columbia.

Roger Harris was the MLA for Skeena from 2001 to 2005 and served as Enbridge’s vice-president of aboriginal and community partnerships from 2008 to 2010.

He says his former employer would have been better off to hold direct discussions with its opponents, rather than giving speeches to those already in favour of the project.

According to Harris, Enbridge should have highlighted what it could do in partnership with northwestern communities instead of focusing on what it could do to the region.

He also criticizes the company’s defence of its safety record, saying Enbridge’s assertion that it spills just one-tenth of one per cent of its oil would be little comfort to anyone coping with sticky crude fouling area rivers and streams.

Harris says Enbridge has missed too many opportunities to hold meaningful discussions about its $6-billion proposal to pipe bitumen from Alberta to Kitimat for shipment overseas, and now the company faces some tough hurdles to win regulatory approval.